puckish

/ˈpʌkɪʃ/

//ˈpʌkɪʃ// adj

"puckish" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“puckish” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
7
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Having a tendency to play tricks on people or tease people by making silly jokes about them; mischievous.

Corpus desk

Index EN-puckish · puckish · English

puckish · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-LONG 7 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "P" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Key facts for puckish
PropertyValue
Headwordpuckish
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechAdjective
IPA/ˈpʌkɪʃ/
Letters7
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “puckish” in English

puckishranks outside the top 100,000 English headwords, in the long tail of specialist, archaic, or seldom-used vocabulary, exactly the territory where a reader stops mid-sentence to double-check spelling.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

puckish is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective, transcribed /ˈpʌkɪʃ/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Having a tendency to play tricks on people or tease people by making silly jokes about them; mischievous.".

Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for puckish, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.

Etymologically, the entry records: From Puck + -ish, after the mischievous fairy in English folklore who is also a character in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. The correct English form is puckish, spelled P-U-C-K-I-S-H.

Definition

  1. 1
    Having a tendency to play tricks on people or tease people by making silly jokes about them; mischievous.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how puckish appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. He has a puckish sense of humor.
  2. She has a puckish attitude.

Etymology

From Puck + -ish, after the mischievous fairy in English folklore who is also a character in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "puckish"?
"puckish" is spelled P-U-C-K-I-S-H. The IPA pronunciation is /ˈpʌkɪʃ/.
What does "puckish" mean?
As an adjective, "puckish" means: Having a tendency to play tricks on people or tease people by making silly jokes about them; mischievous.
How do you pronounce "puckish"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "puckish" is /ˈpʌkɪʃ/. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What is the origin of the word "puckish"?
From Puck + -ish, after the mischievous fairy in English folklore who is also a character in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list